Topic: Living in the Now

[erik]

One essential thread in the CC books was - make it simple - do the work ... face it here and now ... that is a kind of goal itself. If one can encourage that approach- fast, simple, and furious  - maybe such advice will be an eye opener?

     ~.~

Sounds great - put things to practical test and see if it all works. Eventually, all that matters is whether one can do things.

[Zamurito]

I've been keen on my daily actions...really paying attention to what I'm doing and not-thinking every moment of the day.  Really 'Living in the Now.'

I've changed a bit of the wording, as the word 'Intent' seems overused, 'attachment' is a bit vague.  I'm going to run with Intentional Stance. 


There is an intentional stance of the daily world.

An example of this would be my 'stance' for today.  You see, I work, Monday thru Friday.  When I have to work tomorrow as opposed to having tomorrow off. IF I have to work tomorrow then I hold that in my mind, in my intentional stance, which means that I certainly cant go camping in the mountains tonight, I have to work tomorrow! And I certainly cant go driving to another state, or fly to another city, I have to work!

So if I have to work tomorrow my attitude is different, the things I do are different, everything is circling around the idea that ...hey I have to be at work tomorrow! What will I do till then?  (I've use the word 'attachment' in some of the previous posts.)  I'm thinking, and have become attached to this thought...

That is an example of an intentional stance. And we all have different intentional stances.

What am I going to do??  Change the context of my life?  Exactly.

And that is what the warriors way is about...changing over all your socialized intentional stances to warrior intentional stances.

It's a struggle though...

Why it is a struggle? Because it is a struggle to hold the intentional stance of a being who is going to die, or  finding ones hands in a dream, in every single waking act!

This quote from Wheel of Time illustrates it best. pg 93

"A warrior_hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth.  He calls it his last battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A warrior_hunter, on contrary, assess every act; and since he has intimate knowldege of his death, he proceed judiciously, as if every act were his last battle."

Thats the struggle to keep any one of the warriors stances in your mind/body as you do anything. We do it everyday with the socialized world. We uphold the intent of the daily world by typing the way we always do. We intend things left and right ...we know how to fix a meal...how about internal silence?  Do we have the intentional stance for this?

I believe if I work at this with true focus and intensity, there comes a time when the daily world will begin to let go of this warrior. I'll notice it in my acts. When I hold the Intentional stances of the 'warriorsway' in my mind the same way I'm holding the intentional stances of the daily world right now, then my acts will begin to acquire power.

I believe, and am starting to experience exactly what don Juan told Carlos...that the inner dialogue is what ties us down.  I'm really working on this inner silence.  It keeps me here, in this now.  If I'm not thinking,  I can't be in the past and or future, right?  Or can I??  :-)

Eh, just some thoughts 

Zam I Am

[Michael]

just some thoughts ... well it triggered an automatic association for me.
I work Tue to Fri, at least in town, as I do a lot of work at home, but then I am in a different energetic environment.

To prepare myself, as I usually stay up till after 4 am on weekend nights, which I can't do on week nights, I have a special resetting of intent ceremony on Mon nights.

I have a bath in the garden, under the quince tree. I take a long bath about 10pm that can go for more than an hour. In this time, I use the power of the bath to focus my intent - to renew and reset my intent. In this, I specially employ the absolute silence technique - it is always the power place in the ceremony.

Then I send out my intent to every task or situation I am dealing with currently, and especially what I am seeing ahead for that week.

It is good to have these high tree lookout posts in our energetic landscape. I draw lines between important places on the energetic path that stretches ahead of me - like looking at a road snaking along a valley while I'm high above at the pass.

[Zamurito]

It is good to have these high tree lookout posts in our energetic landscape. I draw lines between important places on the energetic path that stretches ahead of me - like looking at a road snaking along a valley while I'm high above at the pass.

"High above at the pass." 

This conjours up memories of when I Dreamed you last.  The Dream began with us 'high above' and you were pointing out certain landmark features, both below us as well as above us. 

z

[Michael]

Soma is such a pass - a little forest hut, at the side of the track, as we pause to see the view, before heading back down into the next valley, where we dodge and wiggle through the obstacle course of life.

[Zamurito]

Recent discussions drudged this up...an oldie but a goodie 


Enter the Now from Wherever You Are

I always thought that true enlightenment is not possible except through love in a relationship between a man and a woman. Isn't this what makes us whole again? How can one's life be fulfilled until that happens?

Is that true in your experience? Has this happened to you?

Not yet, but how could it be otherwise? I know that it will happen.

In other words, you are waiting for an event in time to save you. Is this not the core error that we have been talking about? Salvation is not elsewhere in place or time. It is here and now.

What does that statement mean, "salvation is here and now"? I don't understand it. I don't even know what salvation means.

Most people pursue physical pleasures or various forms of psychological gratification because they believe that those things will make them happy or free them from a feeling of fear or lack. Happiness may be perceived as a heightened sense of aliveness attained through physical pleasure, or a more secure and more complete sense of self attained through some form of psychological gratification. This is the search for salvation from a state of dissatisfaction or insufficiency. Invariably, any satisfaction that they obtain is short-lived, so the condition of satisfaction or fulfillment is usually projected once again onto an imaginary point away from the here and now. "When I obtain this or am free of that ― then I will be okay." This is the unconscious mind-set that creates the illusion of salvation in the future.

True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence. In theistic language, it is to "know God" ― not as something outside you but as your own innermost essence. True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.

True salvation is a state of freedom ― from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need. Your mind is telling you that you cannot get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled. It is saying, in fact, that you need time ― that you need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or understand something before you can be free or complete. You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You think that you can't get there from where and who you are at this moment because you are not yet complete or good enough, but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get there. You "get" there by realizing that you are there already. You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God. So there is no only way to salvation: Any condition can be used, but no particular condition is needed. However, there is only one point of access: the Now.

There can be no salvation away from this moment. You are lonely and without a partner? Enter the Now from there. You are in a relationship? Enter the Now from there. There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment. This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future. Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or not at all.

The Power of Now
Eckhart Tolle

[tangerine dream]

Excellent!
 

[tangerine dream]

Good idea.